IEBC removes 20,000 double registered voters from roll

The electoral commission has removed 20,000 names from the voter roll after discovering that the voters had registered more than once.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Issack Hassan said during a meeting with presidential candidates Tuesday that the commission came across the names as it continues to clean up the register.

Mr Hassan explained to the candidates that voting will be done manually and not electronically as widely thought.

Poll books and lap top computers fitted with power back-ups will be used instead of biometric voter registers in remote parts of the country with no power, Mr Hassan explained.

He said the IEBC will extend voting into the night of March 4 to enable all eligible voters to participate.

Mr Hassan also said the commission will extend voting hours beyond the 5pm deadline in areas where polling centres will not open on time.

“Voting will go on into the night depending on the voter turnout,” Mr Hassan told journalists after briefing presidential candidates, their running mates and their chief agents on election preparations.

The commission disclosed that it had made elaborate plans to ensure that polling centres open at exactly 6 am to enable as many voters as possible take part in the exercise which it termed “historic.”

The plans entail ferrying election materials and officials to their respective stations on the eve of the elections.

“We have hired vehicles to transport election materials to all parts of the country. We have also hired aircrafts to ferry the materials in areas where vehicles cannot reach. We are fully prepared to deploy election materials to all parts of the country,” Mr Hassan assured.

“Our officers will spend the night at the polling stations, voters will find them there on the voting day unlike in the past when they used to find voters already on the queue,” he stated. Where the opening of polling centres is delayed by say one hour, voting will be extended by the same period of time, IEBC Chief Executive James Oswago expounded.

“Any voter who will be on the queue by 5 pm will be allowed to vote."

IEBC officials took the five presidential candidates present though the voter register and the system for transmitting election results during the two-hour session.